Archive for April, 2004

I have decided I am going to change the wiring of my studio rack to reflect a radically different philosiphy.

Thus far, I have been trying to maximize bandwidth to the MIDI modules. My current topology looks like a star, with two MOTU midi interfaces giving me 16 busses, and each bus talking to one module.

The problem with this is it requires computer console work every time I want to change routings, and it’s, frankly, very confusing. I have to remember which port reflects which module.

As I see it, a more sane topology would be to program all the rack-bound modules to each respond to some limited number of channels, with the number of channels assigned to them reflecting the amount I used those particular modules in my musical meanderings. Using the MIDI THRU jacks on the back of each module, this would enable me to construct a single MIDI bus which all traffic from controllers would be routed to. By determining the channel a comtroller was sending on, it could easily choose what instrument to play. Not only would this be much easier during live performance (jamming), it would also considerably simplify finding the right instrument during session work.

There are of course a few exceptions to this. My stage controller (KZ-9000) is not smart enough to not respond on all channels, while the lighting board is not smart enough to not respond on channel one. In addition, since the 505 and 307 are not really bright enough to cope with different MIDI channels, they would seem to need their own bus as well.

Scooters all flat as pancakes except the one that needs tags and doesn’t have them. I could chance the cops, but I think I’ll just take my bike instead. Assuming I can find my bike lock keys, of course

Why is it I feel like I must be cool if there’s a scope screen displaying a sine wave in my office?

Well, Finally getting around to listening to the CDs I bought the other day. The Paul Okenfold sucks, which will teach me to buy CDs before downloading. The Yes is awesome. And the Bill Hicks turns out to be one I’d already downloaded under a different name. Oh well. 😉

[I’m still amused that the record store had Bill Hicks but not Andrew Dice Clay or Dennis Leary or any of the comics I’m used to thinking of as ‘big name’.]

Trading emails with lots of interesting people lately.

Am starting to aquire a bit of a fuck-it attitude towards everything. Not so much apathy as lack of concern. I’m working harder than I’ve worked for a long time, juggling many balls, tossing off emails, and unconcerned. It’s nice to not have to worry about embarrassing anyone. [Well, I could worry about embarrassing me, but I’m slowly developing a immunity towards being embarrassed. About fscking time.]

A little superglue and my e-bay tape robot is ready to back up stuff. at $5 for 20 gigs, it even beats hard disks. 😉

Apparently my 3dm guess turned out to be right for what was sick in SoCal. That’s good and makes me a happy camper.

I’m getting the itch to go somewhere. I mean, Seattle is beautiful and worthy of hanging out in, but..

I played a open mic on monday at the chai place on 45th between neptune and university. Seemed to go well. Who can tell?

Tory’s coming over tonight, so I better run downstairs and reconnect some of the things I’ve disconnected.

And, P.’s games night is tonight, so I need to run up to the ave and take her Clue and whatnot. I might take one of the scooters, it’s been far too long since any of them have seen cycles..

My digikey parts came today, so that’ll be something else to mess around with. And Bruce has a UCM-II in my hands, and autopark is still about a quarter written, and Radio Shack is asking where their latest patch is, and arrrrghhhhhhhh!

On the other hand, I met the !PERSON WHO FOUNDED E-MU! last night. (e-mu, for those of you who don’t keep track, made the first commercial sampling equipment, thusly beginning the electronic music revolution.

Brig informs me, via code I wrote, that my birthday is in five days. I’m not even sure how old I’m going to be, but I know it’s too old. gotta slow this train down, it keeps spinning faster and faster..

This Yes CD, on the other hand, is wonderful. Makes me wish I had a joint in my hand.. but alas, too much work, no time to slack.

I wish there was some way to know if these links would even work in ten years, or even five..

The problem with web links is that they point to something that might not be there tomorrow. The librarians of the world are coming up with a archival web link system, which would permit me to create a link to that article and know that it will still work fifty years from now, but it’s taking them a while – which is hardly suprising, when you consider how large the web is.

[I bet there’s more than a hundred terabytes of porn out there for any one taste 😉 I don’t know why people are commenting on the adult entertainment industry’s shutdown, it’s not like we don’t already have enough porn.. ]

I want google to support a ‘whistle into the mic and we’ll find you the song’ search mode.

And they’re going to be playing out a bunch in the next few months, which I’m very much looking forward to.

In general, there are way too many good things to do and not enough time to do them in. I spent most of today puttering around, getting set up to do debugging on the duncan code again, etc..

My firewall is now 4-way – four ethernet interfaces. Dizzying.

I got the sound card in it working and hooked up to the mixer that drives my PC speakers [a pair of 12″ 3-ways driven by a 200W amp – I take my computer sound very seriously]. So now those of you with sheer.us accounts can make my life miserable.

I also bought a tape robot on ebay, which I plan on charging back to H. as a neccesary expense for our operation – because being not-backed-up was just getting too scary. The other day I power-cycled during a write operation [don’t ask why. It’s a long story involving drugs, alchohol, broken motherboards, and a lot of other less nice things] and the disk array had to do a rebuild.. which 3ware thoughtfully labelled as ‘initializing’.

Well, that’ll make you nervious. You pull up the web interface for your RAID array and you see ‘Initializing’. I figured it couldn’t possibly mean formatting, because I could still read it.. but still, you never know.

And, although I can’t find a link for it, I hear that Georga is going to require peaceful protesters to put up a bond equalling possible cleanup costs, and that they will not be permitted to protest for more than 2.5 hours nor carry signs on sticks.

Sounds like it’s time for revolution to me. 😉

S.

[p.s. – maybe we should split the U.S. up into two countries. All the rabid Bush supports can go to one, and all the sane people to the other. ;-)]

I went to a really, really *kickass* party last night – the last one in the Parallex chain, and E/S really outdid themselves. Everyone was good, and the last DJ (DJ Treez) was awesome beyond compare. The vibe was definately there.. for me at least.

Think this is probably the best easter I have had as of yet.

I had a breif period, after watching a Peter Jennings special, of thinking I wanted to try E/MDMA (which has been on my ‘no’ list for a long time) after all. But then after talking to one of our neighborhood E dealers (who was very much enjoying it himself) I decided no, I don’t think I do. He said I would never feel happier than when I was on it – and something about the way he said it just creeped the hell out of me.

I have to admit, the idea of trying a new drug was exciting to me for a while. But, no dice, it goes back on the bad list. I can’t even say why.. it’s one of those bizarre quantitative things.

Besides, I watched a beautiful happy candy kid turn into a miserable wreck when the crash hits. I don’t think I need that – I like leaving the party still feeling good too much. I’ll stick with my own breeds of happiness, synthetic and natural – especially if that is a typical reaction.. staring out the window looking so miserable that there aren’t words for it. Mild depression my ass..

Actually, I had a major PLUR hangover today. (You know, urge to smile at everyone, calm, and the beat keeps sounding in your head..) but it was okay. I did another open mic at the LL, I sucked, but I didn’t even care that I sucked that much. Mostly, I wasn’t that afraid.

I’ve decided that the next thing my musical entorage needs is some voice lessons. There’s a friend of ‘s that gives them, maybe I’ll give him a try first. Breath control, mostly, I need breath control. I’m always running out of air, and that’s no good at all.

So I had at least a day and party of complete freedom from fear..

Actually, funny aside. I’m always worrying about my car getting broken into – my parents were big on worrying about that sort of thing, and they passed it on – but not once, but twice, I have stopped to get directions or something and then left the passenger window open, and then parked – once in one of the worst neighborhoods in L.A. (you know, the kind where every car has the Club) and again last night in downtown Seattle – and nothing bad has happened. This time, my cell phone was sitting on the seat in full view of anyone, and there was not so much as a single call on it that I didn’t make. And the time in LA, there was not one but two high-performance laptops in the backseat.

So I’ve concluded that people aren’t nearly so inclined to break into cars in cities as one might think.